'Programmable Matter' Could Lead to Universal Toolbox | LiveScience

'Programmable Matter' Could Lead to Universal Toolbox | LiveScienceTo make them self-folding, computer scientist Daniela Rus at MIT and her colleagues embedded strips just 100 microns thick — as wide as a human hair — made of a "shape-memory" nickel-titanium alloy that changes shape when heated or cooled. They also included flexible, stretchable copper-laminated plastic mesh ribbons on the sheets that served as wires.